THE REVAMPED PARLIAMENTARY DICTATORSHIP AN ANALYSIS OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN EGYPT By Sofian Philip Naceur, Cairo 10. December 2015 The autumn 2015 parliamentary elections in Egypt cemented the restoration of the old ruling elite and paved the way for the return of former Mubarak stalwarts to politics. Whilst the reorganised forces allied to the regime dominate the new legislative chamber, the revolutionary left opposition remains marginalised. In December, after a seven-week election marathon, Egypt’s parliamentary election finally ended with an unsurprising result. Even the forces backing the regime and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had predicted a highly fragmented chamber would be the outcome. The official results confirm this prognosis. Regime- critical left-wing parties and the Islamist opposition hold only insignificant parliamentary power and the parties loyal to the regime are the winners of the election. 21 parties will take their seats in the House of Representatives, newly established under the 2014 constitution, which is the only remaining legislative chamber of the newly constituted parliament on the Nile River. The party-political landscape has – at least for the time being – broken away from the characteristic single-party rule under the country’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Under his rule, the regime consisted solely of the National Democratic Party (Hizb Al-Watani, NDP), which dissolved in 2011. In the recent elections, in contrast, numerous parties allied to the regime won seats in the chamber and will now need time to establish sustainable structures with majority support. The three strongest parties – the pro-business Free Egyptians Party (Al Masryeen Al-Ahrar), the Nation’s Future Party, founded in 2014 (Mustaqbal Watan), and the liberal New Wafd Party (Hizb Al Wafd) – together hold 148 seats, with 17 further parties sharing 88 seats. The largest group in the newly elected House of Representatives, however, is the large number of independent MPs not affiliated to any specific party, who will play a decisive role in the negotiations to establish a robust parliamentary majority. 322 independent MPs have been elected to the new parliament. The pro-el-Sisi political alliance of parties, For the Love of Egypt (Fi Hob Masr), on whose list the three strongest parties all ran, anticipates that the good results of its parties give it a good chance of establishing a majority. Whilst accusations of election fraud and manipulation were only uttered sporadically and only minor irregularities were attested to during the election, the president and the government tried to ensure a high election turnout. The country’s ruling class is under pressure to buttress the legitimacy of its rule through broad public support, in particular since the regime has recently become the target of increasing criticism. The election therefore comes at the right time for the regime, allowing it to restore its parliamentary façade, and canalise criticism so as to re-direct it toward parliament. The regime thereby is able to maintain the country’s ruling political status quo, even though, behind closed doors, struggles between the different factions loom that, however, do not fundamentally question the system as such. THE LONG PATH TO ELECTIONS – POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OWED TO ADMINISTRATIVE INCOMPETENCE? The new parliament is expected to be constituted by December 2015, thus bringing to a close a nearly two-year process of political transition that began with the coup d’état against former president Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013. In that year, the army leadership ousted the democratically elected president and instituted a government under interim president Adli Mansour. The process was carried forward by those close to former Mubarak cadres and allied to the army, but also parties in the 1 revolutionary camp. It was, however, a short-lived alliance. The strategy of escalation pursued by the hawks in the interim regime to deal with the protests by Muslim Brotherhood supporters drove the Social Democratic Party, the Constitutional Party (Hizb Al-Dostour) and other socialist parties back into the regime-critical camp. They have been waiting ever since for an opportunity to reinstate the central demands of the 2011 revolution – bread, freedom, social justice and curbing the power of the armed forces – on the political agenda. With the adoption of the new constitution in January 2014, the regime laid the basis for a political transition. After the presidential elections in May 2014, parliamentary elections were set to take place in early 2015, yet Egypt’s constitutional judges made postponing the election scheduled for March and April inevitable. At the beginning of March, the constitutional court declared two pieces of electoral legislation unconstitutional. Since the fall of Mubarak in February 2011, procedural errors or legal intervention have led to the postponement of five out of eight scheduled elections. This time it was criticised that constituencies were drawn incorrectly and that the electoral law allows only candidates with exclusive Egyptian citizenship. Both laws were revised in accordance with the judges’ demand, but the legislation procedure gave rise to conjecture. Interim president Mansour’s signature was at the end of one of the two laws, and when he returned to his old post as the head of the constitutional court at the end of his term, he quickly declared a law unconstitutional that he himself had adopted. This gave rise to speculation as to whether the delay of the election had possibly been politically motivated, and may have played into el-Sisi’s hands. El-Sisi pushed for constitutional reforms and spoke critically about the competencies of the parliament, which has the power to withdraw confidence from the president and force him to step down, a power diametrically opposed to Egypt’s presidential system1. El-Sisi’s distrust of the new legislative went so far that he even considered unifying electoral lists. Meanwhile, el-Sisi has been making full use of his legislative competences, as have all presidents since the dissolution of the elected parliament in June 2012 – Morsi, Mansour and el-Sisi – who have all ruled with legislative competences and therefore basically single-handedly. Since el-Sisi took office, he has signed over 300 laws, revisions of laws and decrees and presented them to parliament as faits accomplis. An article in electoral legislation gives the chamber only 15 days to revise or confirm any laws passed by el- Sisi. Egypt’s regime-critical opposition is outraged, but parties close to the regime seem to be willing to quickly wave through the controversial laws.2 EGYPT’S CONTESTED ELECTORAL LEGISLATION Beyond such political factors, the electoral law in itself drew criticism. Not only does the complicated electoral system mean a seven-week-long, two-step election process, each with a first round followed by a run-off ballot, it also gives preference to financially strong parties and candidates. Election expenses were down 50 per cent compared with 2011; however, money continued to be important for a successful campaign. This applies as much to the 448 seats elected directly, as to the 120 voted on through lists. The party lists are there to fulfil the stipulated quota for Christians, women and the physically disabled, yet the whole country is divided into only four electoral constituencies, putting financially strong parties and party alliances at a greater advantage. The success of 116 businesspersons and financially strong parties such as the Free Egyptians Party in the elections therefore should come as no surprise. They did exceptionally well and entered parliament with their well-filled electoral coffers. Whereas, according to the social democrat foreign secretary Hussein Gohar, the Social Democratic Party spent merely four million Egyptian pounds (about 470,000 euros) for the entire campaign, Free Egyptian Party candidates each received six or seven digit sums in the local currency. Although the electoral law caps election expenses both for individual candidates and lists, the electoral commission charged with organising and supervising the election chose either not to react or to react only insufficiently to complaints when parties were accused of breaching these guidelines. 1 Article 161 of the 2014 constitution states that the House of Representatives can withdraw confidence from the President and hold early elections. Such a step requires approval by two thirds of the members of parliament and must be confirmed in a subsequent referendum by the population. Further details can be found under Mada Masr and Ahram online. 2 As Sameh Seif el-Yazal, head of Fi Hob Masr, states: ‘I see this as impossible, 15 days and 300 laws. In my view, we should approve these laws and debate them afterwards’. Free Egyptians spokesperson Shehab Wagih, too, emphasised that he expected parliament to rapidly adopt the contested laws. Otherwise, the country would face a political vacuum. 2 The electoral system ensured that the new parliament came under urban-corporate and rural-feudal- capitalist-elite control, the vice president of the Socialist Popular Alliance, Medhat Zahed, commented. The electoral system’s majority principle grants financially strong cadres an advantage. The system is a mix of direct and list candidates; however, a majority voting system governs both the 448 direct mandates to parliament, as well as the 120 elected through lists. When a party wins 50 per cent of the ballot in one of the four electoral constituencies, it wins all seats in that constituency. Consequently, parties had to campaign in a geographically broad area, which means that a fair election campaign could only take place between financially strong candidates. It is therefore not surprising that parties ran nearly exclusively on electoral lists or as part of alliances rather than standing on their own. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Fi Hob Masr won in all four constituencies in the first round and took the 120 list mandates.